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28
DOING BUSINESS 2014
Governments and World Bank
Group regional staff
After receiving the completed questionnaires
from the Doing Business respondents,
verifying the information against
the law and conducting follow-up inquiries
to ensure that all relevant information
is captured, the Doing Business team
shares the preliminary findings of the report
with governments through the Board
of Executive Directors and the regional
staff of the World Bank Group (figure
2.3). Through this process government
authorities and local World Bank Group
staff in the 189 economies covered can
alert the team about, for example, regulatory
reforms not picked up by the respondents
or additional achievements of regulatory
reforms already captured in the
database. In response to such feedback,
the Doing Business team turns to the local
private sector experts for further consultation
and, as needed, corroboration. In
addition, the team responds formally to
the comments of governments or regional
staff and provides explanations of the
scoring decisions.
Improvements to the methodology
The methodology has undergone continual
improvement over the years. For
enforcing contracts, for example, the
amount of the disputed claim in the
case study was increased from 50% of
income per capita to 200% after the
first year of data collection, as it became
clear that smaller claims were unlikely to
go to court. Another change related to
starting a business. The minimum capital
requirement can be an obstacle for
potential entrepreneurs. Doing Business
measured the required minimum capital
regardless of whether it had to be paid
up front or not. In many economies only
part of the minimum capital has to be
paid up front. To reflect the relevant barrier
to entry, the paid-in minimum capital
has been used rather than the required
minimum capital.
This year’s report includes an update in
the methodology for 2 indicator sets—
paying taxes and trading across borders.
For trading across borders, documents
that are required purely for purposes of
preferential treatment are no longer included
in the list of documents (for example,
a certificate of origin if the use is
only to qualify for a preferential tariff rate
under trade agreements). For paying taxes,
the value of fuel taxes is no longer included
in the total tax rate because of the
difficulty of computing these small taxes.
Fuel taxes continue to be counted in the
number of payments.
In addition, the rule establishing that
each procedure must take at least 1 day
was removed for procedures that can be
fully completed online in just a few hours.
When the indicators were first developed
in 2002, online procedures were not
widespread globally. In the ensuing years
there has been an impressive acceleration
in the adoption by governments and the
private sector of the latest information
and communication technologies for the
provision of various services. While at the
time Doing Business did not see the need
to create a separate rule to account for
online procedures, the widespread use
of the new technologies today suggests
that such distinction is now justified and
the Doing Business methodology was
changed this year to reflect the practice.
This change affects the time indicator
for starting a business, dealing with construction
permits and registering property.
20 For procedures that can be fully completed
online, the duration is now set at
half a day rather than a full day.
Data adjustments
All changes in methodology are explained
in the data notes as well as on the Doing
Business website. In addition, data time
series for each indicator and economy are
available on the website, beginning with
the first year the indicator or economy
was included in the report. To provide a
comparable time series for research, the
data set is back-calculated to adjust for
changes in methodology, including those
FIGURE 2.3 The Doing Business data collection cycle
Questionnaires developed
November:
Questionnaires developed in
consultation with different
expert groups
Media preparation and
report launch
September−October:
Coordination with regional
communication teams for media
outreach and prelaunch briefings
with World Bank Group regional
teams
Sept−Nov
Questionnaires
administered
17,500 sent
for DB2014
Dec−Jan
June−Aug
June 1: cutoff
date for
reforms
recorded
Feb−May
Writing and publication
August: Comments on the report
and data received from across the
World Bank Group through an
internal review process
Data verification
Conference calls and videoconferences with contributors
Written correspondence
Travel to 33 economies for data collection and reform
verification for DB2014
Data analysis and government feedback
Analysis and verification of data received
13,000 contributions for DB2014
March−April: Request for input from all World
Bank Group regional teams and 25 Executive
Director offices representing their country
governments
Data scoring
58,000 data points coded in DB2014
238 reforms in 114 economies recorded in
DB2014
June: Request to review reforms captured sent to all
World Bank Group regional teams and 25 Executive
Director offices representing their country governments